there is life in the calm, blue sea
by JustKeepOnTheGrass
Summary: She curls a hand around her coat. Tugs it tighter around her body. Those hands can hold up the sun, he thinks. / Steve's thoughts as he and Diana set sail from Themyscira. [Diana/Steve]


_**Author's Note:** Yes, I know. I'm supposed to be working on my other (more serious) writing. But I went to see "Wonder Woman" and these two characters wouldn't leave me alone. So here's something short, incredibly sappy, and a little bit inspired by "The Song of Achilles" that I wrote while I was procrastinating._

 _Reviews are (almost) better than your OTP getting a happy ending. So please leave one if you can!_

* * *

.

.

.

Steve thinks he could listen to her talk for the rest of his life.

He doesn't understand half the things she says, of course, but that hardly matters. He listens, and he listens well. This and that, she says. And the sky and the stars and the water, she says. There is something in the gentle rocking of the boat and the way she shifts beside him which brings him back to that cave in Themyscira. To his muscles tensing and coiling beneath her gaze. To the soft, cold feel of water trickling down his naked skin as she simply looks at him. Her voice sings on and on, and the world opens up before them like a flower in spring.

There is a sweetness to the tension between them. Something he has never experienced with anyone else before. And although she is as innocent as a newborn babe, it is _him_ who keeps tripping over his own words like a foolish little boy.

"Is it very different?" she asks him.

"Is what very different?"

She turns on her side so she can look at him properly. "The world."

"Different to your paradise island where nothing bad ever happens?" He scoffs a little. "Yeah, I suppose it's very different."

He turns to face her as well. Now they are lying next to each other, with noses and eyes and lips only inches apart. The moonlight does majestic things to the way her skin glows in the dark.

"Steve," she says, "do you want to hear a secret?"

"Why not?"

(He thinks he would trade everything he has just to hear all of her secrets; he is that fascinated by her. And isn't that such a frightening realisation?)

"I'm excited," she whispers. She bites down on her bottom lip, but the action does nothing to stop her smile from spreading across her face. "I'm very excited."

Steve frowns. "Diana, we're going to war."

"I know, but _that's_ the exciting part. That _we_ are going." She is smiling broadly now and everything around him - the ocean, the boat, the night sky - shrinks in comparison. "We are going to save everyone."

"Diana - "

"Isn't that amazing, Steve?"

What can he possibly say to that? So he mutters, "Yeah, I suppose it is."

His voice must have sounded odd because she is looking at him strangely. So he offers her a tiny nod and a strained smile. Perhaps those gestures would be enough to convince her that nothing is amiss. She curls a hand around her coat. Tugs it tighter around her body. _Those hands can hold up the sun_ , he thinks.

"Diana…you do realise that…"

"That what?"

That the war is ugly and irredeemable. That there is too much blood on everything. That they can't save _everyone_ at the end of the day….

 _(Diana, you have no idea.)_

Yes, Steve wants to say all of these things. But the words will not come.

She starts to look a little concerned; the playful twinkle is disappearing from her eyes.

"Steve? What's wrong?"

Steve is a spy. He has lied and cheated and killed. But he still believes in goodness. He has to. He just no longer believes that it exists in people; the pointlessness of this war has long ago eroded all faith he ever had in the extraordinary. Yet here she is, and she is looking at him with lips too full of promises and with eyes too full of light….

Something remarkably like hope stirs in his heart.

So Steve says nothing. So he reassures her that it is nothing. She doesn't look convinced, though, but she is kind enough (he's learnt that this is who she is: kind) not to pry.

After a quiet moment, she tells him softly, "The stars…"

"The stars?" he asks, surprised. (She keeps finding new ways of surprising him.)

Her eyes lift from his face to the heavens above. "The stars are more beautiful here."

He follows her gaze upwards and takes in the thousands and thousands of lights, twinkling across the vast, black canvas. He has never thought about stars before, let alone look at them for longer than a few, short seconds; he has never had the time nor the luxury.

Tonight, however, his time stretches on forever.

"I suppose they are quite pretty," he eventually muses softly. "Do you have the same stars on your island? I didn't really notice…"

But there is no answer from her, and his eyes travel down to find her slipping into slumber. Her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks, so very softly and gently. She mumbles something, half in English and half in another language that he doesn't know. He reckons it must be an answer to his question. Too bad that ever since they met, he understands far too little of everything she wants him to understand.

He notices that her coat has slipped, exposing one of her shoulders to the cold night air. Without thinking, he reaches over and pulls the fur up to cover her naked skin. He thinks he sees a ghost of a smile dancing tenderly on her lips. And he cannot help but let out a breath, long and hushed and too heavy with inconvenient longing.

 _You're in for it now, you son of a bitch._

He is. He really is. For she is glorious, and new, and noble, and pulsating with life, while he is nothing but a useless man in a boat with a gun in his pocket.

.

.

.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:** Yes, I'm aware that this is very short, but please still let me know what you thought! Much love 3_


End file.
